Types of Periodicals
What's a periodical?
A periodical is a magazine, journal, newspaper, or similar item that comes out periodically, i.e. once a week, month, etc.
It's good to be able to distinguish between scholarly and non-scholarly periodicals, especially for more advanced research. See the Scholarly Journals guide for more info.
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Magazines
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Scholarly Journals
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Libraries subscribe to various types of periodicals, such as scholarly (some of which may be peer-reviewed, blind peer-reviewed, editorial review) popular, or trade publications. Choosing which to use depends on your topic, the type of writing you are doing, your assignment, and the sources your professor wants you to use. Many databases offer the option to limit to "Peer Reviewed". If you're not sure if a journal is considered peer-reviewed, check Ulrich's by looking up the title of the journal.
What is a peer-reviewed journal?
A scholarly/academic journal is peer-reviewed when manuscripts are sent to experts, sometimes anonymously (blind peer-reviewed), in the related field. They make recommendations to editor for publication, rejection or revision. These journals are generally thought to be of the highest quality.
To find out if a journal is considered Refereed/Peer-Reviewed, check the Ulrich's database by doing a search for the title of the journal. Many, but not all, of the research databases accessible from the Library allow searches to be limited to articles published in Scholarly/Academic as well as Peer-Reviewed journals. If a database only has a "Scholarly" or Academic limiter/filter, keep in mind that refereed/peer-reviewed journals are a subset of scholarly journals, in other words not all scholarly journals are refereed/peer-reviewed.
